


Beyond the Reach of Science

by matrixrefugee



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 08:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Losing a patient isn't easy, but this time it's even harder for Muraki...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Reach of Science

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[**comment_fic**](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/)'s "Yami no Matsuei, Muraki, losing a patient". Warning: mild violence

Muraki stood up from the young man's bedside, and turned to the boy's father, who stood hovering behind him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hasagawa, but there's not much else I can do for him," he said. He had said these words before, to the loved ones of other patients, but repetition never made it easier, no matter who the patient was. This time, somehow, he had a hard time saying what needed to be said.

"But isn't there something else you can do?" the boy's father said, the age-old question that every family member of a dying person had asked to the caregivers and physicians in attendance.

"The cancer has returned and it's pressing on the centers of his brain that control breathing and consciousness. He doesn't have long to live," Muraki said.

"What about another surgery?" Mr. Hasagawa asked.

Muraki shook his head. "It can't be risked: we've already dug around in his head enough." He looked down at the youth: he had had to go in through the patient's right eye, removing the eye. "We'd have to sacrifice his other eye, and even then, the success rate would be limited: the cancer is already spreading too deeply into the tissues."

"So what do we do now?" Mr. Hasagawa asked, frustrated.

"Take your son home, make him comfortable and see that he spends his last days in peace, in familiar surroundings," Muraki replied.

"That's it?! That's all you can tell me?!" the patient's father cried, in desperation.

"I'm sorry, but there isn't a magic bullet that can remove a cancer this aggressive. We've done all we can: I'm afraid he's beyond the reach of science," Muraki said, calmly, putting a bit of his will behind the words to try and nudge some of his calm into the man beside him.

"There has to be something you can do. What are we paying you for if you won't help us?!" the man shouted. A male nurse and a security guard came to the door of the room, quietly assessing the situation, but awaiting further orders.

"Mr. Hasagawa, I'm going to have to ask you to lower your voice: your anger will disturb your son and worsen the pain that he's in already," Muraki said, firmly, looking the man in the eye. But clearly, Hasagawa had a strong will.

"So you're just going to give up on him, is that it? Is that it?!" he snapped.

"Even medical science has its limits and your son is beyond those limits," Muraki said. "I'm sorry, but if you can't calm down, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." He glanced to the guard and the nurse and nodded to them, answering their silent question.

"Sorry?! Sorry isn't going to bring back my son!" Mr. Hasagawa snapped. "You can't just give up on my son! You do that and your blood is on his hands, Muraki."

The nurse and the guard took Hasagawa by the arms and led him from the room, still shouting. Even as they tried to reason with him, his cries echoed off the plastered walls of the hallway.

The boy on the bed groaned, his one eye flickering open. Muraki leaned over him and gently brushed a strand of hair back from the young man's forehead. Too bad he couldn't save the youngster: he had a pretty face, despite the loss of his eye. "Rintaro, it's all right. Those words were between your father and I: nothing for you to worry about. Rest now," he murmured, soothingly.

Rintaro Hasagawa was discharged two days later. On the third day, he lapsed into a coma and died quietly, surrounded by his family. The nurse sent to help the family called Muraki's office moments afterward. He was in surgery on another patient at the moment it happened, but that sixth sense of his which seemed to twig him at the least opportune time told him something was wrong.

That inkling was confirmed when he got the message an hour later: the boy was out of his suffering, but it still weighed on Muraki's heart. A young life was cut short. It wasn't the first patient he had lost, but this one cut him deeply. A young life full of promise ending so suddenly. His grandfather had told him to let a patient go before their passing, but this advice sounded hollow in his mind. Fallen for your own patient? Don't make the mistake your father made, even if this desire is for a young man...

Later that evening, as Muraki was unlocking his car in the alley behind the clinic, he sensed a presence behind him.

"You could have tried harder, doctor," Mr. Hasagawa's voice slurred close to his ear. "You left me without a son, I'm going to return the favor to your father."

Muraki turned just in time to see the knife slashing toward the right side of his face....


End file.
